Bioware cofounder and General Manager Dr. Ray Muzyka waded in to the small-but-growing Internet furor over the ending to Mass Effect 3 today, promising to take fan complaints about the conclusion into account while crafting new "content initiatives" for the game. But it's hard to say at this point whether such new content will represent a significant change for the game's controversial ending, or just add more context and closure to the established narrative.

In a message posted on the official Bioware blog, Muzyka said he was "genuinely surprised" by the negative reactions to the game's ending, calling such responses "incredibly painful." He added he is trying to "accept the criticism and feedback with humility," and said the development team is listening to that feedback while creating new content for the game.

Building on their research, Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey. You'll hear more on this in April. We're working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we've received. This is in addition to our existing plan to continue providing new Mass Effect content and new full games, so rest assured that your journey in the Mass Effect universe can, and will, continue.

But these comments run somewhat counter to those offered by Bioware-Mythic Senior Creative Director Paul Barnett at a Smithsonian "Art of Video Games" event last week. As reported by Vox Games, Barnett compared the rights of video game creators to design their own stories to those of authors in other media.

If computer games are art than I fully endorse the author of the artwork to have a statement about what they believe should happen. Just as J.K. Rowling can end her books and say that is the end of Harry Potter. I don't think she should be forced to make another one.

Did Bioware cave?

Warning: The remainder of this piece contains significant spoilers for the ending to Mass Effect 3.

So, is Bioware effectively giving up some of its authorial control over its own work by ceding the direction of the continuing Mass Effect narrative to a group of angry fans? The tone of today's comments certainly suggests as much, offering nothing but respect for and commiseration with fan criticism. Some in the press and fan communities are already reporting that Muzyka's comments are confirmation that the company is in fact working on a "new ending" for the game.

But at the moment it's hard to say how much today's comments represent a real change of direction for Bioware and how much is just lip service to calm a rowdy section of the fan base. We've always known that the Mass Effect 3 story would be continued through future downloadable content, after all, and some of the game's branching endings already strongly suggested that Commander Shepard's story was not, in fact, complete.

The only somewhat concrete information we have about Bioware's upcoming "game content initiatives" for now is that they will help fans "seeking more clarity to questions or looking for more closure." While this could technically describe a set of completely new ending options for the games, it sounds more like a description for a series of side-stories that help explain and flesh out the existing narrative.

We won't know the extent to which the game's current ending has really been altered until this new content is actually released. Even then, it will be hard to determine how different that content would have been in some counterfactual world where Bioware simply continued the Mass Effect story in the way it intended, absent any organized fan outcry.

Still, even paying lip service to the rights of fans to guide changes to a story could set a dangerous precedent. While gamers are used to choosing paths through branching interactive narratives, letting a small group of consumers actually craft the shape of those paths is just asking for trouble. Not only would game creators in such an environment be constantly second guessing their decisions for fear of upsetting some subgroup of players or another, but any player-guided changes would run a large risk of succumbing to the banality of design by a committee of amateurs, pushing game narrative further into safe and predictable territory.

It's good to hear that Bioware is "working hard to maintain the right balance" between developer control and fan input on this score, because the company is currently walking a very thin tightrope suspended between being too accomodating to fan demands on one side and too deaf to valid concerns on the other.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

277 Reader Comments

I disagree. That is an action adventure game like Zelda etc. Roleplaying, to me at least, means that the character is dependent on stats for his or her abilities, not player twitch skill. What is an action adventure game to you?

That's an extremely narrow definition of an RPG. There are countless games that no one hesitates to call RPGs, like every game Bioware or Bethesda makes, that require the player to actively control their characters in fights.

For some reason, articles like these keep referring to those upset at the ending as a 'minority.' Is there some sort of data for this? I know that the angriest are always the loudest, but I honestly haven't heard from any of my friends going, "Yeah bro, that was a great ending." No, the nicest thing about the ending I've heard is, "Yeah... it was a bit of a letdown but oh well."

do you have any data to suggest that the people who actively want the game changed are anything but a very vocal minority?

We can assume minority until we see valid data saying otherwise.

BTW - there is a big difference between "didn't like the ending/it could have been better, but whatever" and "CHANGE THE ENDING NOW, MY LIFE IS OVER, THE SERIES IS RUINED FOR ME, EA IS SATAN"

Here's the thing though, this article isn't about the people who are crying for a new ending, it's about Bioware's response to the negativity about the ending. Therefore by extension this is what the discussion is about.

Please. They wouldn't be replying at all if it weren't for the child play thing and all of the other more extreme reactions. This is an article about Bioware responding to THAT.

So? Explain to me how what you believe Bioware is responding to changes the discussion to the extent that your assertions become fact.

Not sure why Muzyka is surprised. Bioware has been going downhill ever since the EA take over. Their last good game in my opinion was Dragon Age Origins . Unsurprisingly, it was also the last game that was mostly created and designed without EA.

I'm one of the minority who thinks Mass Effect 1 was better than 2. Mass effect 2 and 3 are just shooters with an interactive story. The RPG elements are so stripped out of them they they no longer qualify as RPGs in my opinion. I'm not saying 1 was perfect, but I'll take it with its flaws over 2 and 3 any day.

EA destroys every good studio it touches by forcing them to dumb down and create a bigger casual market while still releasing a new game in the series every single year regardless of quality. We saw that with Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age 2, and now with Mass Effect 3.

I know it takes a lot of money to develop modern games, but EA would have been my last choice for a partner given their history. I'll be surprised if Bioware is even around in 5 years or even less if The Old Republic flops.

If a game allows you to choose your role in combat and through the story, then it is an RPG as much as any other game that does the same. You seem to be a part of that group of people who think that traditional trappings that went along with RPG's have to remain or the game is "dumbed down" or "stripped" or "overly streamlined"...

They are ROLE playing games, not ROLL playing games. A class based shooter with choice in shooting levels and some side-levels that allowed you to talk to people and provide shades for your character is as much an rpg as a table top affair

I disagree. That is an action adventure game like Zelda etc. Roleplaying, to me at least, means that the character is dependent on stats for his or her abilities, not player twitch skill. What is an action adventure game to you?

Well to be fair, we are talking about an action-rpg to begin with. Anyway, I probably define action adventure the same way everyone else does, although I frequently wonder about how much "adventure" is in the genre anymore.

Zelda doesn't allow role play beyond playing the role of link... neither do virtually any "action adventures", even when they do throw in some rpg-inspired qualities (usually the stat-based stuff or something like it). An action adventure with stats is never called an RPG, not usually, and stripping the stats out of an RPG usually has everyone still calling it an rpg.

ME2 and 3 allow just as much role play as me1. A role playing game is not defined by stats... but I guess we will agree to disagree about defines this or that genre.

I disagree. That is an action adventure game like Zelda etc. Roleplaying, to me at least, means that the character is dependent on stats for his or her abilities, not player twitch skill. What is an action adventure game to you?

That's an extremely narrow definition of an RPG. There are countless games that no one hesitates to call RPGs, like every game Bioware or Bethesda makes, that require the player to actively control their characters in fights.

Of course like everything it is a matter of degree, but it is undeniable that the series has moved far more toward action adventure (same with Dragon Age) since the EA takeover. Mass Effect is no longer an RPG series in my opinion. That is what people like me are upset about. Bioware used to be known for great RPGs not great action adventure games. Not to mention that quality has been slipping steadily as well regardless of what genre you classify the games as.

What would be so bad about that? Game devs already do market research to gauge what ending the majority of people want, wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to go with the common denominator and could purchase an ending that was more suited to your narrative tastes?

In a way that is what you are doing when you start following a series. Expecting Mass Effect 3 to be like Mass Effect 2 is not a huge stretch, it's the core of product branding and entirely expected. The world would be a very confusing place if this wasn't true.

But that is what is so terribly disappointing about this. If they had stuck to that rule and followed the franchise pattern from ME1 and ME2, the ME3 ending would be a gaming tour-de-force where you directly influenced the outcome of several space battles, and depending on how well prepared you were your forces and team members would survive or not, culminating in some exciting boss battles in orbit around Earth to defeat a mysterious uber-Reaper force and defeat their invasion or not. Various plot twists and pieces of lore would be revealed as you went, adding interest.

Instead what was there was a 10-minute exposition full of holes which forces you into a very bad "how do you use the space magic" choice, you leave the place in ruins and then you die. I think being a little upset is not unreasonable, and the only people happy about the ending are likely new to the series.

I enjoyed the ending. I felt like it delivered on the 80s sci-fi feel of the first game. It didn't bother me, didn't irritate me, or anger me. At no point did I stare at my monitor, mouth agape, wondering why this had been done to me.

I absorbed the idea of the Star Child and accepted it fairly readily. It worked for me: in order to keep organic life from being scoured from the galaxy, it created a bloody librarian to catalogue that life before said life could create the elements of its own demise. The organics still end up dead, but at least there is a record of them. Fair enough, if you say so.

I went with the synthesis ending, as thought "Just this once, Rose, everybody lives!" as I did it. Except me, of course, as the messianic figure of the story.

Strange thing about messiahs: they have a tendency to come back to life... at least in the stories. My thought was you can't kick start a whole new type of life without getting a bit of yourself in there.

As it stands, I'll patiently wait to see what's left for Mass Effect. If this is the only ending we get, I'm happy. I will play through again from beginning to end, probably a few more times in my life. I'll continue playing the multiplayer.

I sincerely hope that whatever Bioware puts out, they do for their own sake and for the sake of the art–NOT because of this backlash. I would be less than co-operative if someone told me to change the ending of one of my novels.

Eh I gave up all Bioware games once EA bought them. Don't have any patience for them any more.

Burn, baby, burn.

I'm with you. I lost all faith in them after Dragon Age: Origins. I feel the original vision of that game still would've been great had they went along with their plans to push the creation of content with the toolset they offered. It was supposed to be like NWN but even better and more polished. Instead they offered some crappy DLC and announced an entire sequel when DA:O still felt new. The game never lived up to the potential. Not to mention just being outright broken mechanically and entire areas being unpolished.

Bioware is just another shit developer at this point. I don't blame EA but having to work within their organization certainly hasn't helped.

This would probably be one of the better pages explaining the problems with the ending. (It helps if you've played the first two games, but you don't need to have)

Could you condense it down to maybe three sentences? I'm on a corporate firewall so gamefront and the wikipedia page for ME3 won't load.

That would be pretty difficult, but the basic idea could be summed up with "Deus Ex Machina"

Spoiler: show

Shepard gets carried up by a glowing elevator after his final encounter, and is dictated to by a glowing hologram of a child and told to pick ending A, B or C. (The only significant variation between the three ending FMVs are the color of the explosions.)

The game ending seemed to have a bunch of nonsensical things happen in it that left lots of people confused. Not sure if this was going to be "it" for the story of Shepard and the current ME universe, a lot of people lost their shit and got angry about it.

Bioware tried to be artsy for the sake of being artsy and it kind of blew up in their face.

That would be pretty difficult, but the basic idea could be summed up with "Deus Ex Machina"

Shepard gets carried up by a glowing elevator after his final encounter, and is dictated to by a glowing hologram of a child and told to pick ending A, B or C. (The only significant variation between the three ending FMVs are the color of the explosions.)

Bioware tried to be artsy for the sake of being artsy and it kind of blew up in their face.

They should have done some "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and had Shepard learn how to communicate with reapers through synthesizers.

Turns out speaking in biological language went through their universal translators as insults against their mothers in their language, so they got all mad. Turns out it was all one big misunderstanding, ho ho ho! I mean, beep boop beep!

Their game, their rules. Don't like it? Trade it in, it's just a game, not your real life story, sheesh. I hated how a lot of movies/books/stories in general ended, but I'm not going to guilt the creator into changing it. It's their story. DEAL WITH IT PEOPLE.

A video game didn't end the way I wanted, boo hoo. First world problems.

Basically, Shepard spends three games trying to get everybody ready for this moment. He spends all of 3 rounding up help and support. And then God steps in and fixes everything, although he does let Shepard choose which color of light to use on his fix everything (if you don't think about it) ray.

Their game, their rules. Don't like it? Trade it in, it's just a game, not your real life story, sheesh. I hated how a lot of movies/books/stories in general ended, but I'm not going to guilt the creator into changing it. It's their story. DEAL WITH IT PEOPLE.

A video game didn't end the way I wanted, boo hoo. First world problems.

For some reason, articles like these keep referring to those upset at the ending as a 'minority.' Is there some sort of data for this? I know that the angriest are always the loudest, but I honestly haven't heard from any of my friends going, "Yeah bro, that was a great ending." No, the nicest thing about the ending I've heard is, "Yeah... it was a bit of a letdown but oh well."

do you have any data to suggest that the people who actively want the game changed are anything but a very vocal minority?

We can assume minority until we see valid data saying otherwise.

BTW - there is a big difference between "didn't like the ending/it could have been better, but whatever" and "CHANGE THE ENDING NOW, MY LIFE IS OVER, THE SERIES IS RUINED FOR ME, EA IS SATAN"

Here's the thing though, this article isn't about the people who are crying for a new ending, it's about Bioware's response to the negativity about the ending. Therefore by extension this is what the discussion is about.

Please. They wouldn't be replying at all if it weren't for the child play thing and all of the other more extreme reactions. This is an article about Bioware responding to THAT.

So? Explain to me how what you believe Bioware is responding to changes the discussion to the extent that your assertions become fact.

What assertions do you think I am making? I don't doubt that most people who played ME3 probably have at least a small issue with the ending, but who knows. I DO know that the more vocal part of that, with internet petitions and blah blah blah, are a minority because the game sold millions of copies & these more extreme reactions are coming from perhaps thousands.

The growing internet furor, as pointed out by the article, is what BIOWARE is responding to. I am sure the perception that "no one" loved the ending helps, but I think the vocal minority is more the cause here.

Let me ask you - remove the child's play drive (and stuff like that) and any hating on the forums that are above and beyond what any game normally gets (ya know, something like the reaction to DA2), and do you seem them responding like this?

Well look, 80% of respondents to IGNs poll say they dislike the ending out of a 15k sample size, and if you look at Amazon's reviews they are split between those who give one star because of the ending and those who give three or five stars despite the ending, with very few reviewers actually liking the ending. There is a Facebook campaign requesting a better ending with 50k members, and the Bioware forums are awash with very little else. That is a pretty clear response by the public, and the amazing thing is that they did not see it coming.

I've played and finished all three of the games, and yes, the ME3 ending -is- that bad. It is objectively poor, nonsensical, goes against character and series principles and themes, and willfully seems to go out of its way to nullify the players efforts over both the preceding game and the earlier games. Its as if the writing team went home, a producer took over and deliberately set out to create a badly-written, downbeat, counter-ethos ending.

All I can imagine is that it must have been a huge conflict of opinion within the dev team to cause them to delay finalising the ending until Nov 2011, and that then they neglected to user-group-test the end with actual fans.

I am still going through Mass Effect 3, so i have no idea what the sound and fury is truly about. But i mean damn is it THAT serious?

Unfortunately yes. Bioware basically left out the last 2 parts of a good story structure (cooldown and denouement) in favor of a slapdash pro-forma ending even more sloppy than Deus Ex: Human Revolution (where the ending at least made sense in the context of the game). As a person who loved the rest of the story, I'm not going to say "you MUST change it," but if they wanted to give it a go and build a more satisfying ending I'd say why not? Unlike almost all other media, games are INTERACTIVE media. Especially for ME3 a game built on choice, the ending should be flexible! If people want to push for a new or expanded ending, and the company can see their point and is willing to attempt that, why shouldn't they? It's more worth it than many DLCs that have been bought in the past.

Also, even authors can make mistakes. Yes, George Lucas is an exemplar of how TERRIBLY a filmmaker can rewrite his own work, but on the contrary side you have films like Blade Runner, where the director reediting the work made it much more complex, and interesting. You also have studio decisions to butcher works in progress (Touch of evil) where the director's initial vision was something completely different than what eventually went out the door. I'd say certain films *cough* Speilberg and A.I. *cough* could definitely have used better endings (or more discretion with cutting the film).

I think my comment is going to lost in the shuffle, but I think it is important to note :

Bioware gave up creative control a long time ago. They said that the player had it, they said unprecedented level of player choice would determine the ending.

In essence, they've already abdicated their role as creative leader and have given the players a reasonable expectation that what they choose for Shepard (and what they have chosen in the past) are the things that will determine the ending.

That would be pretty difficult, but the basic idea could be summed up with "Deus Ex Machina"

Shepard gets carried up by a glowing elevator after his final encounter, and is dictated to by a glowing hologram of a child and told to pick ending A, B or C. (The only significant variation between the three ending FMVs are the color of the explosions.)

It is not "caving" to listen to your fans and take constructive criticism. You can maintain artistic integrity while listening to and considering other opinions, in fact art is often improved by considering a variety of opinions.

This is true of even "pure art" and "high art" but it becomes absolutely vital when that art is also a commercial endeavour. It also becomes even more true when that art is meant to be interactive and you overtly and intentionally give fans at least some control in how they personally experience that art. If your goal was to give them an enjoyable experience (for which they paid) and they vocally and regulraly tell you they did not enjoy it, then there is a very real sense in which you have objectively failed and it would be good for your own artistic growth and for the fans you are producing for if you at least give thought to revisions.

I for one respect artists that take criticism, while remaining true to the spirit of their work, more, not less.

This would probably be one of the better pages explaining the problems with the ending. (It helps if you've played the first two games, but you don't need to have)

Could you condense it down to maybe three sentences? I'm on a corporate firewall so gamefront and the wikipedia page for ME3 won't load.

Here's the ending:

Spoiler: show

1. You've spent hours collecting all sorts of war assets with the idea that the would effect how the ending plays.2. Eventually, regardless of your war assets, you end up on earth charging towards a beam of light that will take you to the big weapon that destroys the reapers.3. You run into TIM, go through some dialogue, and end up being finally taken to the Crucible.4. In the Crucible you meet a holographic, I guess, child that tells you that the reapers are synthetic beings that were created a long time ago to destroy all really smart life that would have started creating synthetic beings. This was done because organics and synthetics would never ever no matter what be able to get along. This flys right in the face of other events you can make happen in ME3, and the fact you even worked with Legion in ME2.5. Then, star child, REGARDLESS OF ANYTHING YOU'VE DONE THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SERIES, tells you there are three, and only three, options to save the universe. Noting you've done matters. It's all been for naught. Those options are to control the reapers, bind all organic and synthetic life together, or destroy all the reapers. Not only do these options have no influence from your past decisions but the only difference between the three is the color of the space magic. All options destory all the mass effect relays. However, these particular explosions won't destroy any galaxies (this is not how it happened in the Arrival DLC, destroying a relay cases an explosion large enough to wipe out a galaxy.)6. You watch the explosion and see Joker piloting the Normandy away from the explosion, despite the fact that he would have been nowhere near a relay since he was fighting at Earth.7. Joker crash lands on random planet with a few of your team members. This is only determined by who your love interest is and what ending your chose. Even if tho se members were on earth with you, there's a chance they're on mysterious earth like planet. Because..., teleportation I guess.

All this happens within the scope of 15 minutes. It spoils the story and really destroys the motivation to replay though the series since your options don't change how the end of the story will be.

This isn't including the random plot holes that the end of the game opens up. It's just really, really, poor writing and storytelling suicide.

Comparing positive respondents to negative respondents, and looking at things in proportion, leads me to believe that most franchise fans are quietly furious about how it finished. Only 20% of people read the forums, and only 5% actually write on the forums, but four out of five who write are unhappy.

That would be pretty difficult, but the basic idea could be summed up with "Deus Ex Machina"

Shepard gets carried up by a glowing elevator after his final encounter, and is dictated to by a glowing hologram of a child and told to pick ending A, B or C. (The only significant variation between the three ending FMVs are the color of the explosions.)

In a message posted on the official Bioware blog, Muzyka said he was "genuinely surprised" by the negative reactions to the game's ending, calling such responses "incredibly painful." He added he is trying to "accept the criticism and feedback with humility," and said the development team is listening to that feedback while creating new content for the game.

I have trouble trying to match up Muzyka's reaction and a minority of fan opinion.If it was such a minority, why is Muzyka even having any reaction? It's not like any game ever got a 100% rating by 100% of the fan base.

His reaction suggests the ending of a trilogy was adequate by his standards. Compare that to Mark Darrah, Executive producer of Dragon Age, is asking for fan input for DA 3 and it sounds like they're winging the game story as they go along on that series as well.

Quote:

However, what I can say is that we’ve been thinking a lot about Dragon Age – what it means, and where it could go. This past year, we’ve spent a lot of time both going back to the “BioWare vault” of games and re-examining them, and looking at some new possibilities that today’s industry allows.

And I'd really expect some great fan endings IF a Mass Effect toolset was let loose in the wild

I think my comment is going to lost in the shuffle, but I think it is important to note :

Bioware gave up creative control a long time ago. They said that the player had it, they said unprecedented level of player choice would determine the ending.

In essence, they've already abdicated their role as creative leader and have given the players a reasonable expectation that what they choose for Shepard (and what they have chosen in the past) are the things that will determine the ending.

The ending is the entire game, it's the final act of the series, it's not just the last 10 minutes. You see how your choices throughout the game and series bring characters and big galactic conflicts to an end result. You say your last words to everyone, then go end the reapers or whatever you decided.

Demonstrably false. I had far more than the minimum needed to get all 'endings', and I didn't touch the multiplayer.

How many assets did you get? As far as I can tell, my Paragon Shep did everything right, and I just ticked over 7000. If I hadn't played multiplayer, that would be reduced by half to 3500, and the cutoffs for better (*cough*) endings are 4000 and 5000. This implies needing 10000 in assets without playing MP.

Are there really ~3000 more assets? I ran out of sidequests, and scoured the Citadel on every visit. I can't imagine where they are. Would love to see a complete list somewhere.

Fortunately, my co-op buddies and I liked the MP (we were big GOW Horde and Beast mode fans), so I had 100% galactic readiness, and went into the end with an EMS of 7000 and change. My only wish is that the person who thought the GR percentage should decay in real time be stripped naked and chased through the woods.

After watching a video like this can't you see Shepard waking up and just about any kind of epic ending happening? I could see anything happening... even as much as when he wakes up he is standing in front of Saren back at the end of ME1.

If it was on purpose or on accident I see this as an opportunity for Bioware to make some huge money by continuing on the existing game, not adding DLC to explain the existing ending.

Regardless of how they add onto it, I find myself satisfied with the ending. I've chosen just to forget the part about the space ghost. Instead instead of going up the magical elevator, he hits the button, Reapers die, Citadel explodes, fade to black.

Its the same thing I did with the 4th Indiana Jones movie, choose that it doesn't exist.

One of the things I've noticed is that people who dislike the game will go into great detail about what they feel are the failings. This includes people like the screenwriter who dissected the ending from a teachers point of view or people who try to reconcile the events in the end with the rest of the series.

People who liked it generally seem to say that it's their prerogative to end it however they want, without making value judgements on the quality of the ending, or giving terse affirmations like "it was alright".

One thing that really bothered me was how almost all of the optional content in the third game didn't matter at all. In ME2, if you skip the side missions then your squadmates tend to die on the final mission. In ME3 the side missions don't matter, you get enough readiness out of just running the required story missions and the readiness basically matters somewhere between "not at all" and "very little". Basically, do you get a few seconds of Shepard presumably surviving on a chunk of the Citadel that is now hurling through space and partially destroyed? One thing is for sure, you're not going to see your romance option again, since they're on a planet in a different solar system and god just destroyed interstellar travel.